WORLD BRIEFING | THE AMERICAS; Canada: Swine Flu Death On Vancouver Island

By IAN AUSTEN

Published: September 18, 2009

Health authorities in British Columbia said Thursday that a person from Vancouver Island had died from the swine flu virus. The announcement came as the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that the season's first pandemic outbreak of swine flu in Canada was occurring at several remote aboriginal communities on Vancouver Island. The journal did not offer specific numbers for the outbreak but quoted a physician in Tofino, British Columbia, who said he had treated ''dozens'' of people who mainly displayed mild symptoms. Last spring, native communities in Canada, where housing is often overcrowded and substandard, suffered disproportionately from swine flu. The Vancouver Island Health Authority dismissed the journal article as ''irresponsible and inflammatory.''